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MUMBAI:
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) plans to invest
Rs 1 billion over three years in its edutainment channel ZeeQ
which launches on 5 November.
Targeted
at the 4-14 age group, Zee Q will be the 32nd channel from
Zee network and mark its entry into the fast growing Indian
kid’s broadcasting market.
The
bilingual channel will have 70 per cent content in Hindi and
30 per cent in English. Zee Q will be a pay channel and have
a mix of home produced and acquired content.
Zeel
MD & CEO Punit Goenka said, “Zee as a group stands
by its principle of improvement of human capital and so is
the initiative ZeeQ. It is a step ahead in fostering the curiosity
amongst children through fun and entertainment.”
The
channel will also draw synergy from Zee Group’s education
business, Zee Learn. “During production and acquisition
of content, we took into consideration the learnings from
the 18 years that Zee Learn Limited has been interacting with
as many as 300000 students, parents and teachers across India.
And this has helped us make its edutainment content engaging
and relevant to the needs of Indian children,” Goenka
said.
Zee
Learn Design Head (Communication/IT/Content & Academics)
Subhadarshi Tripathy has been named as the business head of
the channel.
"Zeel will invest close to Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) of money that will be pumped in primarily into content, people, and marketing," Tripathy tells Indiantelevision.com.
Tripathy was confident that the channel will break-even in five years. "We will break-even in five years," affirms Tripathy.
"The
content is divided into two parts. The animated content is
for the age group between 4-7 years. The second part of the
content is locally produced and tailor-made for Indian kids
for the 8-14 age group,” said Tripathy.
Indiantelevision.com
had earlier reported that Zee would be launching a kids channels
called Zee Q.
Tripathy
said subscription income is important since the channel has
decided not to show cola or junk food ads. This will limit
Zee Q's advertiser pool but the objective is to gain the confidence
of parents that nothing on the channel will have negative
impact on kids.
“We
have a nutritionist on board who tells us what we can take
and what we can’t. That’s phenomenal because we
won’t have ads that harm child’s safety. We will
stay away from cola or processed food ads,” said Tripathy.
The
content strategy for Zee Q is simple: to make it fun and educative
at the same time. However, it will be a tough road ahead for
Zee Q as it will be pitted against well-entrenched kids broadcasters
like Cartoon Network, Disney, and Nick who currently enjoy
loyalty of the age group that Zee Q is eyeing.
The
broadcaster will air four hours of original content daily
which includes three to three and half hours of animated content
and one hour of locally produced live action shows. Going
forward, half of the original content will be local productions
which have been commissioned.
“We
acquired content that is good to go for about six months which
includes three and a half hour acquired and one hour of produced
content which will eventually become 50-50 once the produced
shows start coming in,” he added.
Some
of the shows on Zee Q include specially produced programs
like: Teenovation , a show in association with The National
Innovation Foundation about Children innovators who display
brilliance and create utility items for problems they see
around them; Wordmatch -- a National level Hindi game show
for children, which enhances their knowledge of English spelling,
word usage, sentence construction and vocabulary; and Brain
Café -- a super cool café with anything and
everything to do with Science. Brain Café is the perfect
hang out to learn all about science theories, concepts and
their applications in a fun way among others.
The
above mentioned show formats will be owned by Zee Learn.
Another
important part of the Zee Q programming is its acquired shows
which are carefully handpicked by the programming team from
amongst numerous available concepts. The acquired programmes
have been carefully handpicked and adapted to keep in line
with the philosophy of the channel that it is for the Indian
kids.
“We
conducted a survey with IMRB for all India and we found that
participative content is preferable to 4-14 age group. We
have travelogues, quiz shows and science by learning programmes.
We have taken extensive care to make them interesting and
engaging," said Tripathy.
Tripathy
feels that the interesting part of Zee Q’s programming
strategy will be that it will have parental approval. The
broadcaster had conducted a survey with IMRB which had clearly
stated that there is high level of anxiousness among parents
about the kind of content that kids are exposed to on television.
“To
a kids mind the content won’t be boring because it has
to be as engaging as the shows that he is watching. But to
the parents mind we are making sure that the content we are
showing is good for your child’s developmental needs
hence I get an approval of parents and push from parents for
the kids to watch it,” he averred.
Zee
Q, Tripathy believes, will have a positive impact on Zee Learn’s
business. Zee Learn will get exposure on the channel and hence
will be noticed by its target audiences frequently. Certain
school solutions aired on Zee Q as a show from Zee Learn are
content like Brain Café.
"The
Zee Learn chain of preschools and schools will also help Zee
Q in understanding kids behaviour. Programming can be accordingly
tailored for the channel," Tripathy said.
Also Read: Zee to launch kids channel, readies for future growth |
